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The Death of GarfieU. 




15.3 



A SERMON 



DEATH OF GARFIELD 



Rev. JAMES McLEOD 



PREACHED IN THE 



CENTRAL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH, 



BUFFALO, N. Y 



September 2jtii, i88i. 



BUFFALO: 

PRINTING HOUSE OF MATTHEWS, NORTHRUP & CO. 

Office of the "Buffialo Morning Express,^' 

1881. 






V ^^ 



Columbia. Univ. Uh^ 



Buffalo, Sept. 26th, 18S1. 
Rev. James McLeod : 

Dear Sir, — The undersigned having li.stened to the very patriotic 
and aisle address which you delivered yesterday on the death of President 
Garfield, request a copy of the same for publication. 

Yours truly, 
EDWARD HOLMES, GEORGE W. TIFFT, 

BRITAIN HOLMES, ROBERT DUNBAR, 

A. S. CARPENTER, GEO. A. DUNBAR, 

C. F. STERNBERG, E. C. WARNER, 

M. L. CRITTENDEN, CHAS. E. SELKIRK, 

C. J. CANDEE, PATRICK SMITH, 

JOHN CRAIGIE, . WM. WILKESON, 

JOHN DONALDSON;. • • . C. C. F." GAY, 

T. B. SWEET. 



Buffalo, N. Y., Sept. 27th, 1S81. 

Genilemen : The address which you do me the honor to ask for 
publication is not likely to win the approval of the professional politician, 
or of the narrow partisan. But if it has won your approval, and if it 
deserves to be called not only patriotic but Christian, I am satisfied. 

The occasion which called it forth is at once so deplorable and so 

noteworthy in the history of our country, that for that reason, rather than 

because of any special merit in the address itself, I cheerfully comply with 

your request. 

Faithfully yours, 

TAMES McLEOD. 



THE DEATH OF GARFIELD. 



And Samuel died ; and all the Israelites were gathered together and 
lamented him, and buried him in his house at Ramah. — I Samuel, xxv.: i. 

Our Nation is to-day in tears. She has clothed herself 
in a robe of sorrow, and, like a fond mother, she weeps 
over the loss of her noble son. The awful tragedy begun 
at Washington has ended at Elberon. The dark cloud 
which enveloped the Nation on the second of July, instead 
of being dissipated in accordance with our hopes and 
prayers, grew darker and darker, until at last it settled 
down into the black night of September 19th. 

The whole world now knows that Garfield is dead. 

To-morrow a great host will gather together in Cleve- 
land to join in the funeral march, and there in the city he 
loved so well, and which is so near his own house, they 
will with sad hearts and tender hands bury our dead out 
of our sight. 

The attitude of Israel towards its dead Priest is the 
attitude of America towards its dead President. As all 
Israel lamented the death of Samuel, so all America 
laments the death of Garfield. 

There is something very touching and very tender 
about the early life of Samuel. Every child loves to 
read it. He grew up to be a favorite with both God and 



man. He became the Nation's Priest and Prophet, its 
wise Counselor, and its upright Judge. He was a noble 
patriot and always eager to do what he could for the 
welfare of his country. He kept his hands clean and his 
heart pure. He was so loyal to God, and so true to his 
trust, that no bribe however great, and no temptation 
however strong, could swerve him from the path of duty. 
Was it because he possessed such noble qualities that his 
death was so greatly lamented ? Certain we are that if 
these qualities had been absent the grief for him would 
neither have been so profound nor so universal. We have 
read the story of his life and we find that — in his pious 
youth, in his vigorous manhood, and in his more public 
career, as a patriot, a statesman, a judge, and a God-fear- 
ing ruler of the people — he has left behind him so bright 
an example that its lustre has not been dimmed by the 
lapse of three thousand years. Samuel left behind him 
something that the world will not willingly let die, and 
God has taken care that the record of his noble life shall 
never be blotted out. Knowing what we do of Samuel's 
life we do not wonder that all Israel lamented him. 

But Israel's grief for Samuel was only a small thing 
compared with America's grief for Garfield. The land 
of Canaan was not as large as the State of New Jersey. 
We have no idea that the Philistines and Moabites and 
other tribes joined in any expression of sorrow on ac- 
count of the death of Samuel. But in the case of Garfield 
not only his own Nation but the whole civilized world 
bewails his untimely end. Such a wide-spread manifes- 
tation of grief has no parallel in history. 



There must be some good reasoi for this. 

It is no new thing, indeed, in the world's histoiy for a 
Nation to mourn its mighty dead, or to be bowed down 
with sorrow in the presence of some great calamity. 

That has often happened. 

But when until now, and where but in our own land, 
have the sufferings and death of a single man moved 
the whole world to tears ? This great honor was re- 
served for Garfield and for this Nation. 

When the Czar of Russia, and the Patriarch of Con- 
stantinople, and the Pope of Rome, and the President of 
France, and the Emperer of Germany, all sent messages 
expressing their sympathy with our President and with 
our people, and when they all joined in the prayer that 
God might spare the life of our illustrious sufferer, we 
read the news, and wondered. When Princes and Poten- 
tates, when the good and great in every land, expressed 
their abhorrence of the foul crime that had been com- 
mitted against this Republic, and when they fervently 
prayed that our President might live, we rejoiced, amid our 
sorrow, for the kindly interest they manifested toward us. 
And when, with an expression of womanly grace and 
Christian tenderness that has never been surpassed, 
England's noble Queen whispered her words of Christian 
love and sympathy into the ear of our dying President, 
the Nation bent forward and listened, and when she 
heard the royal and loving words, she could not restrain 
herself, but amid her great grief she lifted up her voice 
and from the depths of her great heart she said, God bless 
Queen Victoria ! The Queen of England and her great 



and good Prime Minister, Mr. Gladstone, have endeared 
themselves to us in the hours of our great sorrow in a 
way never to be forgotten. 

Many a strong man wept as he read Victoria's tender 
message to Mrs. Garfield, and Mrs. Garfield's touching 
reply to Victoria. They came and went from the heart 
to the heart. They were words fitly spoken, and are 
more lovely in our eyes than apples of gold in pictures 
of silver. 

And may we not say just here that these two noble 
Christian women truly represent the feeling towards each 
other of these two great Nations ? 

The bonds which bind England and America so 
closely together are stronger by far than those of trade and 
commerce. They are not woven in the loom of selfish- 
ness, nor are they manufactured by Parliament or Con- 
gress. No. These bonds are bonds of kinship, of friend- 
ship, of love. They are the result not only of an 
enlightened civilization, but of a common Christianity. 
May they so remain for evermore. 

But was it Garfield's character, or his heroic struggle 
for life, or the admirable conduct of his wife -and family, 
or was it the fact that he was our President, and that in 
striking him down a great calamity has befallen the 
Nation ; to which of these causes are we to attribute the 
wide-spread sympathy that has been evoked ? 
// is to be attributed to all these causes combined. 
I need not rehearse the story of his life. It is familiar 
to you all. His early years are in their way as full of 
interest as the young life of Samuel. He grew to be a 



favorite with God and men. He had to struggle hard 
with poverty, but his noble spirit buoyed him up. He 
was early thrown upon his own resources and so brought 
into contact with a wicked world ; but the good seed sown 
in his heart by a pious mother had taken deep root, and 
he always maintained his integrity. His filial affection 
was a marked characteristic until his dying day. He 
learned to master himself, and hence he readily overcame 
obstacles which to others would have proved invincible. 
He loved his home, and those who knew him best loved 
him most. He won the favor of the good because of his 
large warm heart, and because of his personal worth. 

The story has been told a thousand times, and it will be 
told to the generations following, how the lad, who was 
so enamored with a sea-fearing life, became a Canal boy, 
how the Canal boy became the Student, and the Student 
the Teacher, and the Teacher the Jurist, and the Jurist the 
Warrior, and the Warrior the Statesman, and the Statesman 
the President ! He will be held up before the youth of 
this land as a bright example, with the hope that by it 
they may be inspired with a loftier purpose and urged to 
nobler action. The fathers of this nation will hold up for 
their sons' emulation the man who began life under such 
adverse circumstances, but who, by his energy and per- 
severance, by his integrity and ability, rose from the low- 
est step on the ladder of honor and fame, until at last he 
reached its topmost round, and how standing there in the 
full strength of his manhood, he became 

" The pillar of a people's hope, 
The centre of a world's desire." 



lO 



9 

This is the story briefly told. 

He was a great and good man, who, as the chosen 
leader of fifty miUions of freemen, occupied, as we beheve, 
a position more honorable than that of any King or 
Conqueror who ever lived. To be stricken down just 
then by a murderous hand is surely enough to excite the 
sympathy of the world. And when we add to this his 
patient endurance under great suffering, his tender 
thoughtfulness of others, the entire absence of anything 
like a spirit of revenge, and, above all, his Christian 
resignation, we have, I think, the secret of this universal 
lamentation. 

But it would be a great mistake to suppose that the 
grief of this Nation over this dreadful calamity is all 
moulded after the same pattern and all traceable to the 
same motive. Far from it. All Israel lamented Samuel, 
and all America laments Garfield. That is quite true. 
But there were those in Lsrael who were more attached 
to Saul than they were to Samuel. They wanted a 
change. They thought the administration of Samuel 
was a failure. It could not be expected that their grief 
would be quite the same as that of those whose feelings 
toward Samuel were very different. And even so it is in 
our own land to-day. There is a great abundance of 
grief It is truly national. But it arises from widely 
different causes. 

The grief of his own immediate family must differ both 
in kind and degree from that of all others. That aged 
mother who nursed him in his infancy, who struggled with 
him against hardships and poverty, on whose brow he im- 



II 

printed the kiss of affection in the presence of an admir- 
ing Nation that had called him to be its Chief Magistrate ; 
that mother grieves to-day as only a loving mother can. 
Her grief is unutterable. 

And who can fathom the depth or measure the in- 
tensity of the grief of that devoted wife, who has been the 
sharer of her husband's joys and sorrows, and on whose 
strong arm she was wont to lean ? By her devotion and 
love, and by the manner in which she has borne herself 
during the trying ordeal through which she has passed, 
she has, like her husband, won the admiration and sym- 
pathy of the world ; but yet there is in her heart to-day 
an aching void the world can never fill ! And how sad 
must be the hearts of those children who have been left 
fatherless. Theirs is a peculiar sorrow. It is intensified 
not only because of the cruel wrong inflicted upon their 
father, but also because of the fact that he occupied so 
exalted a station. 

But the great grief of his family is doubtless tempered, 
as indeed it should be, by the thought that no son, no 
husband, no father that ever lived, has had so great 
honors heaped upon him both in his life and death as 
those which have fallen to the lot of James Abram 
Garfield. This Nation has not, and it will not, forget that 
weeping widow and her children, nor that aged mother. 
But, better still, we believe they will be sustained and 
comforted by the God of the widow and the fatherless. 
Already, I doubt not, they have found Him to be their 
Refuge and Strength, and a very present Help in their 
trouble. The mother, and wife, and children, can surely 



12 

trust that blessed Saviour in whom their beloved one has 
fallen asleep, and, leaning upon Him, they can afford to 
watch and wait for the dawning of a brighter day. 

But aside from his own immediate family and relatives, 
there is a great multitude who mourn the death of 
Garfield. 

Let me try to classify them. 

I. And first let me speak of those whom we may call, 
not improperly, political mourners. They constitute a 
large class. Their grief is deep and their sorrow sincere. 
But it does not all come from the same source nor run 
in the same channel. These mourners may be divided 
into at least three bands. 

I. There are those who mourn for Garfield, because 
they are afraid that they will now lose their office. This 
feeling stimulated them to pray mightily that his life 
might be spared. The motive to prayer was in their case 
largely tinged with selfishness. They prayed that Gar- 
field might live, because they did not see how they could 
provide for their families if, as they were led to expect, 
they should be turned out of the service of the Govern- 
ment. 

" 'Tis true, and pity 'tis 'tis true." 

If the murder, the struggle for life, and the death of 
our President have drawn not only the eyes and heart of 
the world to this country as never before, let us hope it 
may have a more important effect, namely : that it may lead 
this Nation to look at itself, and to gaze with horror on 
the spoils system in connection with our politics, that foul 



13 

blot which has so stained our National escutcheon. God 
grant that this Nation which now weeps over its mur- 
dered President may wipe this stain out with its tears lest 
it be necessary by and by to wash it out in another 
President's blood ! It is high time that the citizens of this 
Nation, irrespective of party, should strangle this young 
monster and hand it over to the Sadducees who say there 
is no resurrection. 

2. Another class of political mourners is found among 
those who are deeply grieved because of tJic uiamiey of 
our President's death. If he had died of disease, or by 
accident, or a natural death, their hearts would not have 
been greatly afflicted. They might appear to mourn, but 
inwardly there would be gladness rather than grief. The 
charge is a serious one, I know, but then it is the exact 
truth. They had no love for Garfield. They regarded 
him as their enemy and as the enemy of their party. They 
looked upon him as the very embodiment of treachery ; 
and, having the courage of their convictions, they did not 
hesitate to " speak evil of dignities." They paraded our 
Chief Magistrate before the world as untrue to his word, 
and as unfaithful to his trust, and alas ! they gloried in 
their shame. We surely do no sort of injustice to these 
fellow citizens when we say that their present grief finds 
its source in something very different from that of those 
who have always regarded Garfield as true and honorable, 
and who stood by him in the proper exercise of his high 
prerogative. It is true, indeed, that the lips of these 
mourners and the newspapers controlled by them now 
overflow with eulogies of the mighty dead, and it is to 



14 

be sincerely hoped that all this finds a glad response in 
their hearts. I believe in sudden conversions; but 
modesty in a young convert is always highly becoming. 
Let us, however, hope for the best. We are glad that for 
any reason they mourn the loss of the noble man whom 
so recently they tried to kill — politically. They will 
pardon a word of counsel, perhaps. Let them remember 
that the time came in Israel's history when Samuel was 
needed. His clear head and steady hand were missed at 
the helm. Saul himself felt the need of Samuel's wise 
counsel. He adopted a shameful course in order to 
obtain it. It should have been otherwise. Saul brought 
ruin upon both himself and Israel. The people were 
loyal to him, but he was not loyal to the people, nor to 
his God. He grievously departed from the path marked 
out for him by Samuel, although he solemnly engaged 
to walk therein. 

God forbid that this old history should ever be repeated 
in our beloved land 1 It need not be, and, if wise coun- 
sels prevail, it shall not be. 

3. Another class of political mourners is found in the 
ranks of the great party which was politically opposed 
to Garfield. Their grief seems to be tempered with an 
exquisite feeling of tenderness. They do not seem to 
feel now as they did a few months ago during the heat 
of our Presidential campaign. Those, however, who 
still believe that the charges then made are true, cannot 
grieve in the same way as do those who regard them as 
wholly false. Garfield did not change his views of his 
opponents so far as we know. They, however, seem to 
have changed their views of him. If he was guilty of 



15 

the crimes then charged against him, he does not deserve 
the praise now showered upon him. 

What kind of grief they have I know not, who be- 
heving in their hearts that a man is base and dishonest 
yet laud him to the skies. 

Would it not be well at this time, and especially in 
view of this conspicuous example, for those — and they 
are to be found in both of the great parties of this 
Nation — whose chief stock in trade seems to be the 
invention of coarse and cruel slanders against political 
opponents, to resolve that henceforth they will place 
principle, honor, and truth far above party, and that they 
will treat an opponent with common fairness? Garfield 
was by no means perfect. Nobody would be more 
willing to admit that than he. But that he was an honest 
and truthful man we may confidently affirm. That he 
was the base character his opponents a few months ago 
represented him to be does not comport well with the 
elaborate eulogies they now pour out over his remains. 
A few such words uttered before he was murdered would 
have been more in harmony with their present adulation, 
as well as with their strong expressions of grief 

II. But, aside from these, there are in this Nation a 
great multitude of patriotic moiirtiers to-day. Alas ! that 
politics and patriotism are not always synonymous, 
Happy would it be for this country if such were the case. 
But it is not. Still, there are millions of true patriots 
who lament our dead President not simply because of his 
personal worth, but just because he was our President. 
These patriots are to be found all over our land ; North 



and South, East and West. They are fearful as to where- 
unto this thing may grow. They love this country as 
they love the apple of their eye; and just because of this 
love they are now sick at heart. They see, or think they 
see, in our land a spirit of lawlessness and of insubordi- 
nation, a partisan spirit, and a greed for office, which, 
unless wisdom prevails, and a merciful God interpose, 
cannot but bring upon us swift destruction. This is the 
thought that fills their hearts with deepest sorrow. Gar- 
field sinks out of sight compared with this. They are 
thinking now of that horrid thing that has led, as they 
believe, to the assassination of Garfield. They know that 
he was a true patriot ; that his great ambition was to 
remedy existing evils; to be the President in fact as well 
as in name of the whole Nation. Why should any party 
or any citizen in whose veins there is the least drop of 
patriotic blood seek to encompass both the moral 
and political ruin of such a man as Garfield ? In the 
sight of high heaven those who tried to ruin his reputa- 
tion, and who denounced him for what they were pleased 
to call his perfidy, are only a little less guilty than is the 
miserable wretch who took away his life ! 

But is not such a view of things both very severe 
and very gloomy ? Is this quite patriotic ? There are 
patriots and patriots. True enough. Some patriots are, 
I know, afflicted with a pessimistic spirit. They see 
things with a jaundiced eye. Everything is wrong. Our 
country is going to ruin. But, on the other hand, there 
is a class of patriots who seem to be influenced by an 
unwarranted optimism. This country has been so 



17 

prosperous, and has crowned itself with such glory during 
its short history, that they do not dream of any danger. 
They see no danger to the countr)- from the spread of 
infidelity, nor from intemperance, nor from Sabbath 
desecration, nor from the spoils system in connection 
with our politics, nor from a wide-spread disregard of law 
and order. Even the assassination of our Chief Magistrate 
is scarcely sufficient to arouse their dormant sensibilities. 
" A madman shot our President," so they say, and the 
only lesson we are to learn from that fact is, that madmen 
ought to be confined in an Asylum, or that our Presidents 
ought to keep out of the way of madmen. Now, that 
is political optimism run mad. No intelligent and 
patriotic citizen can close his eyes to the fact that great 
evils have been tolerated in our land ; evils, too, Avhich 
threaten the foundations of our government. Surely an 
autocratic spirit is out of all harmony with this Republic. 
The spirit that is determined to rule or ruin is abroad in 
the land, and it must be put down, let it cost what it 
may. There are political sorcerers among us who 
are more dangerous by far than that Elymas of whom , 
we read in Holy Scripture. Like him, they are full 
of all subtilty and all mischief, children of the devil, 
enemies of all righteousness, who will not cease to 
jpervert the right ways of the Lord, until the people rise 
up against them in their might. The people can and 
must do this. It will hurt these sorcerers. It will leave 
them in the dark for a season. But it will convince them 
that there is a God in Israel, and it may lead by and by 
to their conversion. 



A genuine patriotism will seek to eradicate evil as well 
as to propagate good. There is much in this land — more 
than in any other land — over which we may well rejoice. 
We thank God for this goodly heritage. But there is 
also much to sadden all our hearts. The shot that killed 
our President was a shot at the heart of the Nation, and 
hence there are millions of patriots who are mourning his 
loss to-day. 

III. But there is still another class of mourners to 
whom we may briefly refer before we close. They 
are the Christian inoiirners, and they constitute a mighty 
host. Their grief differs widely from that of the mere 
politician or patriot. We are glad to know that the 
Christian Church embraces within her fold the purest 
patriots and the ablest statesmen. They are all the better 
patriots and statesmen just because they are Christians. 
But if the politician or the patriot be not a Christian, then 
his grief to-day is far from Christian sorrow. While the 
Christian laments the death of Garfield no less than any 
, patriot in the land — for all Christians are patriots — 
yet his grief as a Christian is tempered by the blessed 
truths of our holy religion. 

The Christian Church of America has not been a silent 
or uninterested spectator of what, in some respects, has been 
the greatest event that has ever happened in our country's 
history. She has for weeks been praying and weeping 
before God, beseeching Him to spare our President. It 
has been a bad time for infidel lecturers to go through the 
land declaring that Christianity is a sham, and prayer to 



19 

God a mockery, and our holiest instincts a lie. But still 

the prayers of this Christian Nation, and of the whole 

Christian world, have been denied. The life of Garfield 

was not spared. What then ? Is prayer to God a failure ? 

By no means. The heaven-born instinct that prostrated 

an afflicted nation before God will do so, if need be, again 

and again. The Church of God will continue to pray 

with the utmost confidence. She knows that God is the 

hearer of prayer, and that if our pra\^er be not answered 

in our way, it is yet answered in His way, and His way 

is always the best. The skeptic may sneer at prayer as 

being unreasonable and illogical, but the Christian knows 

that 

" Deft Logic is but Reason's tool, 

Reason a child in Nature's school ; 

We may not joy nor grieve by rule, 

Nor syllogize a prayer." 

And so Christians will go on and pray. They cannot 
help it. They prayed that Garfield might live, and now 
they lament his death. But they sorrow not as others 
who have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died 
and rose again, even so them, also, that sleep in Jesus 
will God bring with Him. 

Our President was a Christian. He was inspired 
with Christian hope. He was actuated by Christian 
principle. This is better than all else. It is this more 
than anything else that moderates the Christian's grief 
to-day. He died, as we believe, clinging to the Cross of 
Christ. In this hope the Church of God will to-morrow 
take in her holy arms all that is mortal of him and lay 
them tenderly away. As for his noble spirit, that has 



20 

gone into the presence of its God, and to the full 
enjoyment of a blessed immortalit>\ 

We mourn our beloved dead, but in the midst of our 
grief we also rejoice. He was cruelly stricken down. 
But the Nation's loss, and our loss, and his family's loss, 
is his everlasting gain. For 

" When the righteous had fallen and the combat was ended 
A chariot of fire through the dark cloud descended; 
Its drivers were angels on horses of whiteness, 
And its burning wheels turned on axles of brightness. 

A .Seraph unfolded its doors bright and shining, 
All dazzling like gold of the seventh refining, 
And the Soul that came forth out of great tribulation 
Has mounted the chariot and steeds of salvation. 

On an arch of the rainbow the chariot is gliding, 
Through the path of the thunder the horsemen are riding ; 
Glide swiftly, bright spirit I the prize is before you — 
A crown never fading, a kingdom of glory." 

Only a word more. 

We lament the dead Garfield. But, thank God ! we 
hav^e the living Arthur. 

We feel sure that every patriotic and Christian heart in 
this broad land bounded with joy when President Arthur 
uttered those noble words in which he expressed his 
determination to carry out the reforms inaugurated by 
his predecessor. In doing this, he may rest assured that 
he will be lo}'ally supported by the people, and our 
prayer is that he may be spared to carr}^ out his good 
resolution. 

The President is dead, but the President still lives. 
God save the President ! God save the Nation ! 



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